


Not cozy at all (hard to live)

by hellskitchensmurdock



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s12e18 Hell's Kitchen, Gen, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Spencer, Hurt Spencer Reid, POV Second Person, POV Spencer Reid, Prison Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid Angst, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid Whump, Spencer Reid-centric, Whump, the other bau and past bau members are just mentioned, this is literally just all spencer, to say spencer isnt thriving is a bit of an understatement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28686504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellskitchensmurdock/pseuds/hellskitchensmurdock
Summary: You live in sickening yellow and concrete grey. Maybe you do what you need to in order to survive, or maybe you didn't have to.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	Not cozy at all (hard to live)

**Author's Note:**

> hello im back with my second criminal minds fic this ones just a short wee one shot this time while im working on another fic. this was quickly written and edited by myself so if there are any mistakes that'll be why. either way, im super excited about this fic because ive wanted to write a second person pov fic and a prison fic for ages and this has both !!
> 
> if you wanna check out my tumblr its @heathridgemanor where i post (yell) about criminal minds, among other things. also, the title is from the song Судно (Борис Рыжий) by Молчат Дома, translated into english.
> 
> trigger warning for suicidal thoughts in this. they aren't graphic, but they are there. there is also mentions of blood which may be graphic. please keep this in mind and please don't read this if that is going to effect you.

Sickening yellow that makes you wish they were just the same concrete grey that surrounds you. The bars. You tried to explain this to Emily; she didn’t understand. She never does anymore. The bars, the table, the wooden plank disguised as a soft wall between them in visiting hours; it’s chipped away at her ability to understand you.

Just like it’s chipped away at your sense of self.

Reading to just for contentment, chess is a game of strategic violence to show anyone clever enough that you are just as ruthless as them. Journaling doesn’t help but your head hurts too much to keep everything inside.

You talk to Rossi about trust, about change, about-

Lockdown. This is your chance. You look back at Rossi.

You dig through concern and sadness and are thankful for the lack of pity until you find it. Love. Love for you as if you are his own. You let it burn into your mind because you are never going to see it again.

Not if you can’t figure out another way.

You’re back behind the pealing bars and they somehow look more attractive now that you know what is going to happen the next time you leave them behind for the laundry. Your cell block isn’t on lockdown, you will still be required to perform your duties and you wish your duties were profiling as it once was.

You can’t even try to profile the countless white shirts you fold beyond _stripping away individuality as the prison system intended._ It’s even before your anger overtakes you that you know you are too far gone.

Luis spent his final moments choking on his own blood, fear flooding his eyes as he was forced to stare up at the reason he was killed. You shouldn’t envy him.

But you do, because he is free from this hell.

That’s how you know you are too far gone. 

That’s why you give up trying to come up with another way.

_“There’s only so far I can go.” Shaw said._

_“So can I,” you replied, and you’re talking about how you can’t go and fight them with a shiv that was once a toothbrush, but you can prove everyone who told you that you wasted your chemistry PhD wrong._

You can’t think, your mind is blank when you need it most. Sickening yellow bleeds into your mind, pooling into an ocean deeper than any on Earth, and your thoughts become chained and anchored to the bottom.

Pull. Pull. You can’t. You can’t hold your thoughts up the way Atlas held the heavens.

You aren’t Atlas.

He endured his punishment, you are going to kill yours.

Revenge, protection; the motive doesn’t matter. If your heart wasn’t slowly dying it would hurt with the knowledge that your friends would still believe you were a good person. That you were doing what you had to.

_You don’t have to do anything. You can just die instead._

Baking soda. Bleach. Bars. Your three new best friends cheer you on as you look over your shoulder. For the first time, you are glad Gideon and Hotch and Morgan left, because they are the three people who were the polar opposites of your new friends.

You never want them to know you let your fear and anger cloud your judgement.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

You can almost imagine it’s raining.

_They killed Luis._

Brush. Brush. Brush. 

Snow off a road, it’s colder now.

_They deserve it._

You put the snow back where you found it and as you deliver it to the men God sent to test you, you wonder if it He will send them after you, or if you are not even worth that much trouble. You are quiet when you return to your cell, and you can barely hear Shaw asking _What the hell did you do?_

He’ll find out soon enough, when the rusting yellow bars and the concrete grey cell is decorated with red and your broken body becomes a centerpiece. You ought to let that happen.

It doesn’t.

Instead you can’t decide if you are being faced with a wrathful God or a godless existence as you find Malcolm on the floor, choking on his own blood. So much like Luis. The only difference being the method.

You still killed them both by proxy. You are no better than the man who put you here. Maybe he was right to.

The guards shove you behind the chipping steel and you think the yellow has never looked as dull as it does now. After days, weeks, months, _it doesn’t matter,_ of being trapped by those bars, they have never looked so dull.

“Bad batch,” you hear the warden answer your question and you would have laughed at the understatement if two-

Three-

Four-

Shaw wasn’t coughing up blood, decorating his cell with half the paint that should be on your own. Maybe between them they will cough up enough blood for you to do as you should without harm to yourself.

You don’t know what makes you feel worse: that, or the fact you only feel bad that none of the people who were poisoned were your two targets.

_Targets._

You had targets. 

You hope Gideon was right when he said _This will hit you,_ because maybe the guilt will give you absolution. Fingers softly grip at your face; they almost don’t feel like your own and for a moment you can’t remember how you got here.

The only reason you don’t start trying to wake yourself up is because you know you aren’t lucky enough for this to be a dream.

You let the bars embrace you. You let the baking soda and bleach congratulate you. You don’t fight, you stay quiet, you keep your head down. You don’t want to; you want to scream and shout and start a fight but you don’t because you let your anger out once already and-

The fallout.

You wonder what you did to Mr Scratch for this to be his way of playing with you, and the only possibility you can think of is that he forced Hotch to choose, and he chose you.

Just as you chose him.

Just as you chose to give in.

It does hit you in the end, even if they didn’t die. Everytime you pass the infirmary you feel a stab in the fractured remains of your soul. The fog of fear and anger clears up and you do feel bad about hurting those men, but not as much as you should.

Maybe you always knew this was how it was going to be. After all, you did tell Rossi _There’s a helplessness in here that causes people to do things they would never consider_ and helplessness was really the only way you could describe how you felt.

How you feel.

Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt Shaw and Malcom and the others, but you did.

You did.

That’s what matters in the end, even if your family won’t see it because they are blinded with love the same way as you were with anger and fear.

Night falls, lights out, and your last thought before the sickening yellow consumes you in a way it shouldn’t in the dark is of an old friend who killed a man.

You wonder what Elle Greenaway would think of you nearly killing seven.


End file.
